To deal with the European Union's imposition of 10-percent punitive duty on leather-upper shoe imports from Vietnam, the country's footwear industry should center on the Japanese and U.S. markets, local newspaper Saigon Liberation Friday quoted a local deputy industry minister as saying.

Deputy Industry Minister Bui Xuan Khu stressed that the industry should quickly focus on exporting shoes with their uppers and soles made of rubber or plastic, and different kinds of sandals especially to Japanese market. Vietnamese footwear enterprises also need to boost sales in the domestic market, and intensify investment in renewing production technologies to produce more high-grade products using no leather uppers.

Wider access to export markets and better production technologies will help enterprises gradually build up their own brands, create their own designs, and manufacture more materials and accessories, he said, noting that such a growth in the local footwear industry will certainly attract foreign material and accessory suppliers and producers.

"The state will assist enterprises in the spheres of investment and trade promotion, market information sharing, and creation of flexible and transparent investment environment to lure more domestic and foreign footwear projects," he said.

The Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association (Lefaso) will, in coordination with the Industry Ministry and the Trade Ministry, propose the European Commission regulate the punitive duty in a proper manner, Lefaso vice chairman Nguyen Duc Thuan said, noting that "Vietnamese footwear firms are small-sized, and mainly do outsourcing contracts for foreign companies so they could not decide production costs, and therefore, could not dump leather shoes at the European market."

The European Union (EU) on Thursday formally adopted definitive anti-dumping measures on leather shoe imports from China and Vietnam. Punitive duties of 16.5 percent and 10 percent, applicable for two years, will be imposed on Chinese and Vietnamese leather shoes respectively from Saturday when the provisional duties expire.

Children's shoes, which were not covered by the provisional anti-dumping duties introduced since April 7, are now subject to the definitive duties. In April, the EU imposed provisional tariffs of 19.4 percent on leather shoes from China and 16.8 percent on those from Vietnam, which were phased in over six months.

The latest move to introduce definitive anti-dumping duties was widely criticized by European business and consumer groups, which say that such measures will lead to job losses in the retail sector, and hurt millions of consumers.

Source: Xinhua